Reconciling an existing plan

Select “Single Association” and “Create New Plan”. Enter the relevant data in the available cells and then click the "Create Now" button. When the data sheets have been prepared by the model select "Input Data".

From the “General Assumptions” sheet select “Business Plan Accounting Data”. You must now enter the output from your own business planning model. This should include at least one historical year (the base year) and all 30 forecast years. The model will prevent you entering data with incorrect signs but remember the following principles:

For the Income and Expenditure account all inflows (revenue, income etc) should be entered as positive and all outflows (expenses, costs, charges etc) as negative. For negative values just enter a minus sign and the program will do the formatting.

For the Balance Sheet all assets and liabilities should be entered as positive numbers. Accumulated depreciation and SHG should be entered as negative numbers (contra-assets).

For the Cash Flow statement the same principle applies as for the Income and Expenditure Account in that all inflows or sources of cash should be entered as positive and all outflows or uses of cash should be entered as negative. Remember an increase in cash balances is a use of cash and therefore entered as a negative.(This is different from the convention for published accounts’ cash flow statements).

Enter all the data for the three financial statements including the indicated note items to the Income and Expenditure Account. All the data should be “hard wired” and not linked using formulae. If you wish to link the data to your own model you will have to do it via an intermediate “dump” sheet, then copy and “paste special” the values to the model itself.

Save the data using the “Save” command, naming the saved file, and then return to the “General Assumptions”. Enter your assumptions into the grey cells only. When the model reconciles the two plans it will derive the other assumptions in the blue cells, based on your own business plan. The model will enter these assumptions as hardwired numbers so that they can be changed to create sensitivities and different scenarios.

Now select in turn the input sheets for the different revenue streams appropriate for your business. You must enter data, if applicable, in the grey and green cells. As before, the model will derive the values for the yellow cells. If you enter any values in these cells they will be overwritten when the model “reconciles”. The data in the green cells is used for reconciliation purposes only and cannot be flexed for sensitivities.

You should be careful that the data in the green cells is consistent with that already entered in the “Business Plan Accounting Data” sheet. The model will check and will not allow you to proceed until it is. For example the total rental income from the separate revenue stream sheets must be the same as the single figure that is entered on the “Business Plan Accounting Data” sheet.

Check that all the data and assumptions have been entered and return to the “General Assumptions” sheet. It is possible to view the CAPACITY’s own forecast at this stage before reconciliation. Just to be safe save your data and then select “Reconcile Model Forecast”. The model will now compare its own 30 year forecast with the forecast which you have input into the model. It will then reconcile its own forecast to yours using reconciliation factors to adjust any figures that are out of alignment because of addditional features in your own model. These reconciliation factors can be observed by selecting “Reconciliation Factors” from the “Analysis” menu.

For interest you might check that the numbers produced by the model are identical to those that you input by selecting the three financial statements from the “Analysis” menu.

You now have a reconciled plan based on a dynamic model that can be flexed by changing any of the key assumptions. You can save as many versions of your plan as you want since the program just stores the “raw” data which only utilises small amounts of hard disk space.